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My Amazon Seller Central Rant
When I was first setting up an actual store for Carbon Fiber Gear, I went to Amazon to see what I could do about selling some of the unique products I was carrying on their catalog. I found that they have a Seller Central program, where you pay $40/month and a tremendous 15% transaction fee (albeit – it does include the ~3% credit card transaction fees) to be able to sell your products on their store.
I thought it would be a great opportunity not only for me to get my products out there, but also for Amazon, since there was a decent number of products that weren’t on their store…and I have the mindset that Amazon wants to sell everything possible.
So I signed up to see how it would go. While I wasn’t selling a ton of things through Amazon (in fact there were probably months I lost money), it was still ok enough for me to keep going. My problem comes down to the fact that I ended up getting a few bad feedback, that were all promptly resolved…yet Amazon still decided to close my account down due to it. Lets run through the what happened, and the 4 pieces of bad feedback I got out of the close to 100 transactions we made:
- Customer orders a wallet late on 12/13. It ships on 12/16 via USPS Priority Mail. Without contacting us, she leaves a 1 (1 is the worst and 5 is the best) feedback rating because the product didn’t arrive. Two days after she leaves her feedback, the product arrives. She does not change her feedback, and we provide a seller response stating what happened.
- Customer orders a iPhone case, it was damaged in shipping. Customer leaves us a 1 rating feedback, and then contacts us for a resolution. We of course offer to accept the product back for a replacement, unfortunately things sometimes get damaged in shipping, and it’s outside of our control. The only thing we can do is offer the best customer service. We never hear from customer, customer never changes feedback.
- Customer orders a license plate frame. It also ended up being damaged in shipping, and without contacting us, leaves us bad feedback. We found out that we accidentally sent a prototype version of the frame that was prone to the backing falling off…the production version completely resolved this issue. Without ever contacting the customer, or them contacting us, we sent him two of the new frames, along with a carbon fiber keychain, and a personal note explaining the situation. The customer gets in touch with us, thanks us for everything we did, was happy with the new product, and goes back to Amazon to modify his rating and feedback. That update I’ve yet to see in Amazon’s system.
- Customer orders a carbon fiber money clip that ended up having a few minor imperfections in it from the manufacturer. He leaves bad feedback, but does not contact us. We get in touch with him, send him a replacement that we made sure was perfect, he is happy with the new product, and he updates his feedback and rating on Amazon. We have not seen this get updated in Amazon’s system either.
Then there are 3 feedbacks that are perfect 5’s. So out of close to 100 orders, we get 3 perfect ratings, 4 bad ratings – 2 of which were changed to perfects and 2 of which there was nothing else we could have done to try and fix the situation. From my perspective we’ve offered the best possible customer service we could, we’ve sent feedback to the manufacturers we work with to ensure their products are perfect and they take the feedback we send them to heart.
Yet, even explaining each situation Amazon still closed our account…permanently…and forever, and we were told via e-mail…we were not given an opportunity to speak to anybody in person. The response we got was:
Thank you for writing. We have considered your request for reinstatement and decided that your account will remain blocked.
A seller’s negative feedback, refunds and claims reflect a seller’s overall performance. High rates of these criteria generally indicate that buyers are experiencing unsatisfactory transactions.
Even though in reality everything we did was ok, and we didn’t happen to have the other 93 or so customers leave good feedback…so it looked like percentages of bad feedback was extremely high compared to good (4 to 3)…and it wasn’t even put into consideration that two of those had changed their feedback, even though I don’t see an update on Amazon’s side.
It just really sucks from our perspective, I was hoping to develop a great relationship with Amazon as we continued to grow…not only in sales, but also in the uniqueness of our products on their store. I was extremely displeased with the sort of canned responses we were getting. I mean we’re paying $40/month and we were giving them 15% of our sales, the least we could ask for is the opportunity to speak with a human. I hope this isn’t an indication of where Amazon is moving as a company.
Anyways, that’s that, and so we close that chapter. It’s also a reminder to not put all of your eggs in one basket, because you never know what can happen. Running a business is a constant rollercoaster of ups and downs, unfortunately this was a big down!
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James
06/13/2009 6:12 amYeah man, I feel your pain, I had a good few sites going with EPN, one of my main earners was slapped by Google, lost alot of money.
James
06/24/2009 5:46 amWhat are you using to create the “CFG Direct” store?
Dekoracja Okien
06/24/2009 5:53 amMost reasonable people ignore negative feedback like “damaged in shipping” while researching the shop so it’s not a big deal. Unless there’s a lot of those obviously.
Shawn
07/02/2009 4:38 pmhttp://www.amazon.com
Checkout with Amazon is horrible and they are out right thieves. It appears to be some sort of scam going on here and they really need to be investigated. I have been thinking of contacting Chris Hanson from Dateline NBC to see if they would investigate this fraud and shell of a company.
We processed with them for 4 weeks processed 19 orders through them @ $190 each and with out giving any reason warning were shut down.
We had absolutely no complaints and all packages were shipped within 1 day. All money went into the reserve account and not into our bank account. So now they have over $4000 of our money and won’t communicate with us. We tried calling several times and were transferred several times and told every person we were transferred to was the right person to speak to. Got connected to the final “right” person and she put me on hold for awhile and returns to the phone and says I’m sorry I can’t discuss your account you have to contact seller-performance@amazon.com. So I write them and even threatened to contact the Comptroller of Currency and still no response. Something needs to be done about this situation. Type in amazon payments suck in google. There is another blog you really need to read. Amazon has done this to so many people its not even funny. No wonder they are offering free processing.
They are not in the business of selling books they are in the business of enticing innocent people to sign up for there service, allow them to process to process payments for a limited time, immediately shutting them down and then stealing their money!
Jeff
07/18/2009 8:47 amI feel your pain. I’ve been selling on Amazon.com for nearly ten years, and this morning I woke up to the same “Dear John” letter you received (and it was received at 2 am on a Saturday, so of course it’s automated). It’s been my experience that they are simply less and less interested in catering to the little guys, and they’ve catered their seller metrics to weed out anyone who’s not moving product in the volumes they deem necessary.
I’m going to send an appeal on Monday, but I suspect I’m going to get the same response you got. So now I have to wait till mid-October to receive about $1800 in revenue that’s going to be held.
It’s too bad Amazon’s become such a monolith; this certainly can’t be the company that Jeff Bezons envisioned back in the mid nineties.
Richard
07/24/2009 4:54 amI am also going through the same problems that you are. My account has 100% feedback, no A-Z Claims and every order was shipped on time. But they still closed my account and held $6000 of my money. They are like a machine. You cannot discuss with anyone and all you get back are automated, irrelevant reponses.
I have this week issued a court summons to Amazon for the money they owe and consequential losses.
This is happening far too often with too many sellers. They withhold payments for no reason and are, in effect, using OUR money as an interest free loan.
My suspicion is that Amazon were not happy becasue I was selling below their price on their site and taking business away from them. I cannot think of any other reason for their actions.
With eBay if they have a problem with anything you are doing they notify you and give you some time to put things right and resolve any issues. Amazon give you no notification. They just close your account and keep your money.
If you are thinking of selling on Amazon dont bother. Eventually they will rip you off and keep your money for no reason, and theres nothing you can do about it.
Doomsday
07/26/2009 11:22 pm“Amazon.com Inc is trying to survive the economic crisis”.
It looks like not only major financial companies are trying prevent themselves from going down while financial crisis is showing its power, but also Amazon.com looks like showing all the signs that deep recession or may be early depression is on its way.
Sellers on Amazon.com are frustrated because every action leads to suspension of their accounts on Amazon. And what’s even worth, sellers find out that their money are reserved by Amazon for 90 days without any right to get them back for that period of time. Every Amazon policy is written in the way that leads to suspension of your account without any serious reason. Amazon blocks sellers accounts and reserves thousands or may be millions of dollars for 90 days without any valid reason. For example, a statement like: “You have 5% of your orders cancelled or refunded, and we suspend your account because of your low selling performance”, looks suspicious to me. Don’t the buyers have the right to cancel the order? Or we cannot cancel or refund the order just because Amazon doesn’t want it? Or maybe it wants us to do so in order to block our accounts and hold the money?
It looks like a good way for the company like Amazon to loan money without any interest in this tough economic situation. Do you think Amazon is trying to boost up its bottom line by reserving people’s money? Good strategy but looks quite fraudulent.
The government really needs to check Amazon’s activities. Companies have no right to reserve people’s money for such a long period of time (90 days) or have no right at all. According to Amazon the reason why they reserve your money on their account is that in case if there are any claims from the buyers they will give their money back. Don’t they have 30 day return policy? So what about the rest 60 days?
The rest 60 days is enough for Amazon to invest your funds and make money or probably just cover their losses. Can you imagine what they can do with your money during 90 day period? They can invest many times in inventory or many other things and make it look like a healthy company. But there is no place on their financial statements that shows that this or that amount of money is the actual amount that was reserved (taken) from the sellers without their permission. I think they should be forced to have a section on their 10-K reports showing the amount of money (cash) that is a reserve amount that belongs to sellers on Amazon. Otherwise it makes their financials look good and their potential stock buyers are fooled.
I think their shareholders have the right to know what is going on inside the company. They just cannot continue boosting their earnings by taking people’s money without any permission.
Amazon’s “service” that allows others to sell on their website have to be terminated or BLOCKED, like they call it. Because what they are doing it is far from being ethical. I think this company is doomed to be exposed one day like any other company with practices like that.
My recommendations for Amazon stockholders: SELL, SELL, SELL. And to potential buyers: DON’T BUY. Avoid risk as this company doesn’t pay for the risk associated with its actions.
David Pitlyuk
07/26/2009 11:49 pmDoomsday – even though I wrote the original post, and I did not like the way I was treated by Amazon…my argument to your post is that they would have made much more money from me by the 15% per transaction they were making on me from sales.
Given that – it doesn’t make sense that their sole reason would be to keep money to invest for 90 days.
Thoughts?
Pam
08/02/2009 9:19 amI hear you. I was a good amazon seller for a number of years. It really helped to supplement my income and support my book habit. Then I had 2 negative FBs in a row – one from a nut in Jersey who posted 2 DAYS after her purchase that she hadn’t received the order. The thing is, too, that amazon doesn’t make it easy to contact the seller if you have a question. I tend to be pretty patient w/ purchases as I know that media mail CAN arrive in 2 days or it can take a good bit longer. And of course there is no dealing with amazon or speaking to a live person. And, for books, ebay is not really a great option. I’ve tried Alibris but haven’t sold a thing on their site.
Pam
08/02/2009 9:22 am… and, speaking of fraud, I suspect that you are right Doomsday. I’ve thought for some time that ebay is bilking their sellers (many, many folk are being billed for services they never signed up for – such as MarketplacePro – or cancelled; $24.99 a month X thousands … maybe millions … you do the math). Would not surprise me if amazon is doing the same.
Mike
08/04/2009 11:54 pmThey just closed my account today. Had it less than a month and had great feedback as well as several sales that were also cancelled the day (8/03) that they cancelled my account. How come my buddy who has been selling the same type of products for several years has had nothing happen to him (yet…)? I was low price on some of the books that they have availab
Rubbish Amazon
08/27/2009 12:37 pmI have had the same problem with amazon they are holding £2000 of my money an wont give it back, due to the drop in performance, one person left a negative feedback due to the box being damaged by the royal mail, in fact heres what she wrote ” box damaged by royal mail, other wise ok” now that aint my fault is it. I have been inactive on Amazon for over 1 month now and they still charged my credit card £24.99. how dare they.
brassed off
08/30/2009 2:11 pmHad my account closed for no apparent reason other than those already pointed out here. Excellent sales in a short space of time.. no problems with feedback.. etc etc. Total waste of time and I am sure that somewhere they are acting illegally. Have had funds held for 88 days now… let’s hope.. for their sake.. they give me my money on time
Ama-Hack
09/03/2009 11:47 pmThis is a letter I received from Amazon on 9/2/09….
————————————————————-
Hello from Amazon.com.
As part of our ongoing commitment to improving the customer experience on Amazon.com, we are conducting a review of your seller account. During this review period your funds will be reserved in your Amazon Payments account for up to 30 days, although we will continue accepting orders on your behalf for items you list for sale on Amazon.com
Please know this is not necessarily a negative reflection of your selling history. This action is taken regularly on marketplace selling accounts across the Amazon platform, particularly where sales volumes or inventory levels are not supported by sufficient buyer feedback or established sales history. Account reviews may also be the result of increases in negative feedback, chargebacks or A-to-z Guarantee claims received.
During this review we will be evaluating the performance of your account, including customer feedback and A-to-z Guarantee claims received. It is important that you continue to fulfill orders and only list items for sale that you are able to deliver as promised during this process.
While our review can take as many as 30 days to complete, you may be able to expedite the release of your funds by providing us with the following information:
1. Tracking numbers of items dispatched with corresponding Amazon.com order numbers
2. Current retail or online sales channels including links to selling pages
3. Detailed explanation of your business including your source of inventory
4. Amount of inventory you plan to list for sale on Amazon.com and availability of items for delivery
Please use the “Contact Seller Support by e-mail” link in your seller account to provide us with additional information. Sellers with Seller Central accounts can confirm shipments in Seller Central by clicking the “Orders” tab, then clicking “Confirm Shipment” and entering tracking information for fulfilled orders where available.
We will evaluate the information that you provide to us and respond accordingly.
You will be notified via e-mail when our account review is complete.
Regards,
Seller Performance Team
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com
——————————————————-
From this letter I can only gather that my volume of sales relative to my feedback were too high. If anyone has any experience with this, can you please email me for tips/procedures/help/guidance/ ANYTHING! What are the chances of getting my money back? Amazon has left me lost and out of money. Please help me! -thekosmoskid@hotmail.com
(I have 100% positive feedback)
PATT
09/04/2009 9:45 pmI also have them reviewing my account and holding almost $2,000. I had my product on the lowest price and I think that was the problem because I have the certificate that is original. I had no problems with any buyer I really think they are very satisfied. I don’t know if I should continue selling the rest of products or not. I can’t afford more than a 30 day hold. I am suspecting that amazon protects some sellers.
Pam
09/05/2009 4:40 amThe business press really needs to be alerted to these practices (not that it seems to do any good). Both eBay and Amazon are using unethical – if not criminal – methods to bump up their bottom line.
If enough individuals wrote to Businessweek, 6 Minutes, Fast Company, etc., perhaps we could get some investigations.
N
09/11/2009 1:55 pmAmazon rips people off. Search ripoffreport.com, Amazon has a history of screwing over sellers.
Pam
09/11/2009 2:09 pmFascinating.
Companies like amazon and ebay are literally stealing from sellers (probably to bump up their bottom line to stockholders) and the business news media ignores it altogether.
Wonder how quickly you would get some sort of resolution from amazon if you were suddenly featured on 60 Minutes …. but that ain’t gonna happen.
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Terrell
09/16/2009 11:35 amread your statement on Amazon sending you their “chain letter”. If you notice, they want you to turn over all of your vendors, where you buy your product from. They also want to know all of the routes that you sell from—via your own store, others stores, or your own website, etc. This is because if they are not already competing selling the same product you are, —they are preparing to very soon.
The letter you received is only the first step. Right before the 30 days of “Review” is over, or right on the 30th day, some people receive a polite notice saying thanking you and your review is over. This leads you to believe everything is back to norma. Right when you think your money will be released, —it is then you receive the permanent suspension letter which blocks your money for an additional 90 days—for a total of 120 days.
Even then, if your settlement date is right before the 90 days, or even right after it—-they make you wait for the next settlement date.
My settlement date was the 15th of this month. The 90 days would have been over on the 17th, —and they are making me wait for the next settlement at the end of the month.
We were with Amazon 5 years. 98% feedback when we were blocked. They started competing selling our same product and a month later—we were gone.
By the way, they are depending on you to continue selling during the 30 day “review”. It is more money they have to hold for the additional 90 days after suspension.
Good luck
JR
09/20/2009 5:36 amWe are now in the same boat – got the automated Dear John letter the other day. We are not shut down yet, and suspect the steady increase in business (despite 4 years in business and a 0% defect rate) got us the cryptic doom and gloom letter. We appealed – no response within 24 hours as they state. After many calls and being told that there is no “physical address” for the seller performance group I am considering contacting the legal team at the corporate address to remind them that “failure to make disposition of funds” when you have a “known obligation” to do so is a crime in most states. Is there a group established that can work together on this? Anyone contact the Washington State Attorney General’s office with a formal complaint? I was told by one technical employee I could email payments-funds@amazon.com requesting a release of our funds for urgent reasons (ie to pay vendors, employees etc).
Have any of you had any resolution or gotten your funds released?
JR
09/20/2009 5:55 amTerrell,
Unreal and I agree wholeheartedly with your post- we were competing on some similar items. It sounds like (not in my case per se,but generally) they are concerned about authenticity. If they see a business jump up in sales, they automatically assume that (instead of working hard) you must be doing something improper. According to the agreement, even in the case of a review they note they can hold a percentage of funds – not the entire amount! The agreement mentions holding a small percentage of the trailing 30 day shipments. Additionally the agreement says in any “material change” to the nature of the business interaction between Amazon and the merchant, the seller needs to be given 30 days notice. Of course they violated there own policy on this as well.
I would like to find out who at Amazon the illusory “seller performance” team reports to. Anyone know?
Also, since Amazon sellers are located nationwide, this issue I believe could be considered a federal one – from the sounds of it, in excess of a million dollars – if its over a million I think the FBI would investigate..
Alex
09/29/2009 12:30 amAmazon is totally bad when it comes to that.
1. They closed an account I had in the past for 9 months because they did not like the fact I tried to sell an expensive digital camera as new. I think they thought I am a thief or something!!! it took contacting their investment department to solve it after 9 month of no help.
2. they closed my friend account after selling 170 items, because 3 left him bad feedback (items not in inventory), and while 3 out of 170 is ok, he only had 7 people leaving good feedbacks and 3 negatives. resulting in closing his account permanently!!! unfair!
3. MOST IMPORTANTLY, amazon does not put seller item notes as visibly, resulting in good number of customers ordering and not noticing the seller comment about the item, and they leave bad feedback and disappointed. THAT IS FRAUD TO MAKE THE COMMENTS WITH LOW VISIBILITY!
4. Amazon have no problem pushing kindle, but careless about pushing happy customers to leave feedback. 5~11% feedback ratio is well bellow the ebay 78% ratio, and that is Amazon fault.
If Amazon would hold themselves accountable to the same standards, they just seem to only care about Target, not customers or small sellers!
David
10/29/2009 11:54 amGreetings everyone,
As a company operating out to the state of Florida we have had the opportunity to deal with many eCommerce sites such as Amazon. We have sold with Amazon for about six months now. Over that time, Amazon has suspended our account twice. They reactivated our account after an initial 30 review while holding over $1000 of our funds. After the release naturally we became excited and relisted a lot of our products. Much to our dismay, after just 5 days of selling we received the dreaded suspension letter and our account was put on hold only this time with roughly $5000. As we did nothing wrong other than offer consumers products at GREAT prices, which usually ship the same day, Amazon said our volume of sales was not justified. What really gets us is we had to go through all the same processes (send us your suppliers, company information, so forth and so on), which we previously went through the first time our account was suspended. We called several times and got the same BS story seller performance does not have anyone to talk to. Okay then, Amazon with their extensive operations worldwide does not have anyone in seller performance to talk to??? Are you kidding me, well then put me on the phone with your automated server that sends out these emails and supposedly reviews our accounts. As Amazon has now held our funds twice “released once after 30 days” now it has been 30 days again and we just received this letter, “Hello from Amazon.com.
Thank you for writing. After a review of your account by an account specialist, we have decided your account will remain blocked.
We regret we are unable to provide further information on this situation. Further correspondence regarding the closure of your selling account will not be answered.
The closure of this account is a permanent action. Any subsequent accounts that are opened will be closed as well.
Best regards,
Amazon Seller Performance Team”
Let us remind you now that they claim that they are now going to hold our money for an additional 90 days!!! Well, as a doctoral student and a driven business professional, I will not let this case go, even if they release our funds. Why? Well, simply someone has to do something to start the revolution =) Join our fight Seven Times Seven on Twitter
David Pitlyuk
10/29/2009 11:57 am@David – I’m following you guys on Twitter now. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me directly as you continue this. I’m not very good at keeping up to date on Twitter.
desi
10/29/2009 1:31 pm“90 days equals a full quarter of floating money”
Last month I received a notice form Amazon stating I would receive payment to my checking account in 5 days. The next day I received an e-mail saying they were holding my money pending an investigation. They said I had done nothing wrong and it was standard procedure. They went on to say I should keep selling and filling orders. Which wasn’t easy some of these items were very costly to ship. A week later they e-mailed and said my account was closed and I would have access to my funds in 30 days. Thirty days have passed and I still can’t get to my money. Today i received the following e-mail from them:
“Hello from Amazon. We are writing to let you know that we have blocked your Amazon selling account. You may no longer sell on our site. We took this action because it has come to our attention that an excessive portion of your recent orders were returned or have been cancelled.
(800 orders one return due to freight damage) If you still have items to ship, please take appropriate steps to resolve your pending sales. Your Seller Account will remain accessible and you are encouraged to refund or ship pending orders. Your funds are being reserved in your Amazon account for 90 days from the date of your final sale. After 90 days, the funds will be disbursed minus any A-to-Z Guarantee claims or charge-backs. If you have further questions about your funds please write to payments-funds at amazon While we appreciate your interest, the blocking of your account is a permanent action. Any subsequent accounts will be blocked as well. Thank you for your understanding with our decision.
Regards, Seller Performance Team Amazon”
I have been an amazon buyer and seller over 4 yrs and a recent transaction gave them the right to place a hold on 35k of my funds for another 90 days… they have placed funds on hold 150 days out of 365 days a year… the question is how many suspended accounts are out there with funds being held back? I mean merchants take all the risk with inventory while amazon sits back and audits accounts and charges expensive fees…Why would a multi billion dollar company want 35k of my own money? Do you know if you sale on amazon and exceed 1k in revenue, there is an automated system that flags your account and places any funds in reserve on hold, denying you access to your account and your money? BE WARNED, its been happening for many years and they hide behind emails…
i can be reached at estrada.desi@gmail.com
Patricia
10/29/2009 3:51 pmI would suggest that anyone & everyone with a Twitter account, direct a tweet to @60Minutes alerting them to amazon’s AND eBay’s direct fraud of sellers and demand an investigation. If enough people press this issue …
Jeff
10/29/2009 5:17 pmI wouldn’t know where to begin, but I think what’s really needed is an online sellers’ co-op. Sellers are in need of a way to sell online that isn’t subject to the whim of a corporate monolith like Amazon or eBay.
Millions of people around the nation are abandoning corporate banks for credit unions. It would be fantastic if a group were to step up and establish some kind of member-driven sales platform online.
Patricia
10/29/2009 5:26 pmThat requires so much money. What eBay and amazon are both doing are criminal – withholding money to, in effect, cook the books for stockholders. They need to be exposed and we need stronger laws governing the consumer.
desi
10/29/2009 5:38 pmI can front the capital to start the website, the key is awareness, how do we go about gaining awareness, any one have any ideas? Amazon is really good about keeping blogg sites like these to a minimal. Your really have to experience their pain to fine a blogg like this…
JR
10/29/2009 7:08 pmDesi,
Try sending them an email mentioning “failure to make disposition of funds” and that you understand what their failure to release funds owed to you, rightfully earned by you, implicates under the law. Make a formal written demand for the money within a certain time period (ex 3 business days). cc your attorney if you have one. Then see what happens. Hope this helps
Matt
11/05/2009 3:29 pmYou wanna here a funny one i have 446 feedbacks all 5’s and i got my account closed due to one person claimed i sold a counterfeit product and they held my account and then i got another bad one two weeks after about condition, and they closed my account down…
David
11/10/2009 10:57 amWOW, we can’t believe how many people are experiencing what we are/have gone through with Amazon!!!
@ Patricia- Per your comment we did send a Twit at 60 Minutes, no reply yet but hopefully with persistence we can get the airwaves to share the story as we are continuing to try CBS and other local networks, which we also recommend others do!
@JR- thanks for the recommendation. We did send an additional email with a similiar request but got yet another canned response. So, naturally our attorney is now diligently pursuing the case. Even though we copied her in on the last email this was the response…
“Greetings from Amazon.com.
Thank you for contacting us. Due to the status of your account we are
reserving your funds in your Amazon selling account until we are sure all
items have shipped and no A-z Guarantee Claims are received against your
account. Your account will be evaluated 90 days after the initial date of
block or closure request, which was September 30, 2009. Your funds will be
disbursed to the bank account on file after your 90 day review, minus any
outstanding chargebacks or A-z claims.
For review of your account and why it was blocked, please contact
seller-performance@amazon.com.”
Well that is just great, as the email clearly stated what we were after but you (Amazon) failed to provide us with the information, maybe you should really think about having an actual person read the emails– all of them which clearly provide the information in your response!!!
Anyway, we are on our way and our attorney is now handling all correspondence with Amazon but we will definitely let everyone know what is to come.
Thanks… Dave for having a great thread for everyone to chat and keep up the stories =)
Cheers
David
Seven Times Seven
Patricia
11/10/2009 12:29 pmI’m wondering if it might also be beneficial to tweet this entire rant? There can be amazing power in Twitter if it is harnessed correctly.
David Pitlyuk
11/10/2009 12:35 pmPlease do Patricia and others. I think the more people we can get to come and here and post their story the better.
JR
11/11/2009 12:45 amDavid and others – send the same payment demand email but this time to this email: payments-funds@amazon.com . Also open a technical question/ case number on your account and ask technical how to get paid. This will open an official case number on your account (this way its all documented right on your account). Even if technical tells you they can’t help, don’t mind that and just keep posting your updates as to whether you get your money or not. Once you have this posted on your account, copy the webpage showing you documented this stuff right on your account page. Also if you have any emails that say your performance met withing seller guidelines I would copy those into your letter (one return of 800?) Scary… good luck… hope this helps David and everyone else I possibly can.
Jenny
11/17/2009 5:18 pmIs it beneficial to provide amazon with the actual product distributor and our receipts from them? I am wondering if this will make them suspend us permanently because now they can order our products from that distributor.
I received the 30-day temporary suspension letter also because I sold 100 items in 15 days and it might have raised a flag with them. They said I cannot sell for now and that they are holding my money for 30 days which I dont mind because I know my products are authentic and all tracking information has been provided to customers.
Will there be a chance for them to reinstate my account if no one complains within those 30 days?
desi
11/17/2009 5:37 pmGreetings from Amazon.com.
Thank you for contacting us. Due to the status of your account we are reserving your funds in your Amazon selling account until we are sure all items have shipped and no A-z Guarantee Claims are received against your
account. Your account will be evaluated 90 days after the initial date of block or closure request, which was October 16, 2009. Your funds will be
disbursed to the bank account on file after your 90 day review, minus any outstanding chargebacks or A-z claims.
Per section 2 of the AMAZON SERVICES BUSINESS SOLUTIONS AGREEMENT:
“If we reasonably conclude based on information available to us that your actions and/or performance in connection with the Agreement may result in a significant number of customer disputes, chargebacks or other claims, then we may, in our sole discretion, delay initiating any remittances and withhold any payments to be made or that are otherwise due to you under this Agreement for the shorter of: (a) a period of ninety (90) days following the initial date of suspension; or (b) completion of any investigation(s)
regarding any Seller actions and/or performance in connection with the Agreement.”
Best regards
desi
11/17/2009 5:43 pmI can appreciate your prompt response to this manner… Unfortunately this
is unacceptable.
Amazon has placed two account reviews in the early stages of our seller
account, reserving funds 60days out of 90 days and has now placed another
hold for an additional 90 days reserving funds for up to a total of 150days.
The performance team has acknowledged at the time of the suspension there
was no A-Z guarantees and our refund/cancelation rate was 0.0%. I continued
to fulfill orders at my expense in good faith and ethical matter. I am not a
come and go merchant who creates multiple accounts to scam amazon and their
customers, I take pride in my business and operate in an efficient matter. I
am ethical, operate with integrity and honest in everything that I do. Now I
know $34,210.56 in reserved funds may be a small amount by Amazon standards,
but you must know it also effects a portion of my over all business.
Amazon is in “failure to make disposition of funds” and I understand
that Amazon failure to release funds owed to me, rightfully earned by me,
implicates under the law. I ask that we come to mutual agreement, I demand
you release funds on or prior to December 1st 2009 anything held beyond this
date will leave me no choice but to take legal Action against amazon and
recover any money owed to me including any additional fees associated with
recovering the funds.
I look forward to your response…
Regards,
desi
desi
11/17/2009 5:44 pmGreetings from Amazon.com.
Thank you for contacting us. The funds currently in your selling account will be transferred to your bank account after the 90-day period has expired, provided we do not receive charge backs or A-to-Z Guarantee claims against your sales.
As you know, your account will be evaluated 90 days after the initial date of block or closure request, which was October 16, 2009.
Your reserved funds will be disbursed on or after January 14, 2009, to your bank account on file.
Best regards,
Payments Specialist
Seven Times Seven
11/17/2009 6:07 pm@Jenny: In business, building up your contacts and distributors is the core to your intellectual capital. It is your property. This is the collective brainpower and knowledge of your workforce and company. Never give this away to another company, as you are giving away a core portion of your business. Amazon, like all retail establishments, is aware of this and this is one step where Amazon is reacting unethically. They are trying to con you out of your suppliers like a standard email spam scam artist. Of course we’re also dealing with a company retaining thousands of dollars in liquid purchase capital (floating money) to reinvest (probably claimed improperly financially in quarterly reports, since they technically ‘have’ the money, but through a very sketchy means). In short, our answer is ‘no.’
Do not give away your business. Even if the big bad wolf is trying to be sneaky about it by acting like it’s a legitimate question. You wouldn’t tell the owners of a particular mall all of your business information just because you are renting out (PAYING FOR) a venue. Good luck and join us in the quest to get this shady activity exposed!
JR
11/17/2009 6:25 pmVery well stated Seven Times Seven. You don’t need to authenticate anything. We did not provide supplier information – only let them know that each and every tracking number was in the system and could be checked and tracked. Still recommend opening up a technical case on the account and corresponding with someone who has a name and then documenting that. (even if there are no results). This will make it less likely that Amazon can hide forever behind the canned responses and legalese with no name on the emails…
Patricia
12/04/2009 7:18 am“Now I know $34,210.56 in reserved funds may be a small amount by Amazon standards …”
Hundreds of thousands of sellers’ funds being held sure adds up. Something is rotten in the State of Denmark. This is what years of corporate socialism adds up to.
Seven Times Seven
01/14/2010 3:29 pmGreetings everyone. After months of research and aggressive campaigning, we have some DEFINITIVE ACTIONS for all affected parties to take. Today we were contacted by the Better Business Bureau after we submitted our third complaint in so many months. They let us know that Amazon.com receives over 26 hundred complaints every three months. Reporting to the BBB is certainly a worthy step to take so that the word gets out, however, they advised ALL businesses affected by Amazon Seller Central’s antics to contact their State Attorney General’s office immediately. After we contacted both the Florida State Attorney General and the Washington State Attorney General (Consumer Protection Division / 800 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2000 Seattle, WA 98104 (206) 464-6686 / File #:356702), we FINALLY received our funds back.
It is VITAL that all affected individuals contact both the Washington State Attorney General AND their own State Attorney’s office. We have an attorney and we are now seeking punitive damages for a multitude of reasons, none of the least including late bills and missing the busiest time of the year in retail. We seek to combine cases so that we can form our a multiple plaintiff lawsuit. Combining cases will help share the attorney costs and is also the correct means of moving forward. Our attorney is willing to work directly with the State Attorney General in order to receive assistance on the cases and this will also greatly reduce the costs. PLEASE, anyone interested in pursuing punitive damages, contact us immediately at service@seventimesseven.com or our attorney at ktomeo@cfl.rr.com. When you contact us, we can also provide all contact numbers, etc. Let’s get this case together and put an END to these unethical business practices!
Amazon.com breached their own contract when they waited beyond 90 days to disperse our monies, they also never provided (per their OWN agreement):
1. Reasons for the hold
2. Information upon which the hold decision was made
3. Results of any investigations.
According to their own rules they must produce these items. They also must have a logical system and process in place for these statistics and decisions. We believe they do NOT. And this is where the case can take hold, along with the 90 day breach and other solid occurrences.
Per section 2 of the AMAZON SERVICES BUSINESS SOLUTIONS AGREEMENT:
“If we reasonably conclude based on information available to us that your actions and/or performance in connection with the Agreement may result in a significant number of customer disputes, chargebacks or other claims, then we may, in our sole discretion, delay initiating any remittances and withhold any payments to be made or that are otherwise due to you under this Agreement for the shorter of: (a) a period of ninety (90) days following the initial date of suspension; or (b) completion of any investigation(s) regarding any Seller actions and/or performance in connection with the Agreement.”
The time to act is upon us – we are in contact with multiple media outlets and are moving forward with this case. Good businesses should no longer be affected by an unethical and constantly breached contract. We have a chance to stand together in a United Front and put the hammer down on Amazon. We need to ethically stand up for all small businesses in general and quell the fire of irresponsibility. We need to let them know that they cannot continue malevolent and atrocious actions without any consequences. These events have gone on long enough; enough businesses have been affected or closed or heavily damaged as a result. They have all suffered undue pains. Amazon thinks that these problems will go away, that they can do whatever they want. They think they can continue unabated. They are truely mistaken. Their immoral and amoral actions will come to a close. We will personally see to it.
Please join us.
David Pitlyuk
01/14/2010 3:54 pmGreat update 7×7, keep us in the loop with how legal actions proceed.
Ed
01/22/2010 5:20 pmHi All,
Got the hold letter from Amazon 2 day ago along with $14,000.00 of my money in their account for 30 days.
“Hello from Amazon.com.
We are writing to let you know that your listings have been suspended and are currently unavailable for sale. You may not sell on Amazon.com until further notice.
We took this action because it has come to our attention that you may not be completing transactions. According to our records, your pre-fulfillment order cancel rate has failed to meet our performance target of less than 2.5% of your orders.”
We do have a higher cancellation rate then usual but, all the rest is in top shape:
Number of Orders 156 237
Order Defect Rate 0.64% 0.84%
Negative Feedback Rate 0% 0.42%
Filed A-to-z Claim Rate 0.64% 0.42%
Service Chargeback Rate 0% 0%
Number of Orders 28 97 265
Pre-fulfillment Cancel Rate 7.14% 7.22% 7.92%
Late Shipment Rate refund Rate 0% 4.12% 6.04%
Been selling on Amazon Central since 2007.
Does this mean I will be facing a 90 day held up just like the rest of you?
I Am really not in the position to take this to court, has any one had any success by doing something at such early stage?
Please help
ED
Seven Times Seven
01/24/2010 2:19 pmA quick and dirty answer is unfortunately: no; no one has had early success so far as we know. And circumstances have forced us to become reluctant experts in these weird matters. The best advice would be in the letter we penned just above; make SURE to contact BBB, reference our case if you like or others (to show a pattern here and even unity). Also: the Washington State Attorney General. And it wouldn’t hurt to have our attorney (or any other if you wish) write an official letter to Amazon by mail. In the case of Kellie, she’s already versed in their contract and knows of possible violations and conditions which should have been met.
We are continuing to keep names for our case. If you find yourself stuck and would like to take action, let us know and we will add your name to the list. Good luck and thanks for sharing.
Oswald
01/29/2010 6:14 pmWe sold on Amazon for more than 5 years literally thousands of transactions per month. We are 100% positive that Amazon defrauded us as a merchant. We were shipping so much with Amazon that we used FBA which was nothing short of a disaster. NEW PRODUCT was deemed “damaged” and we are positive that they subsequently sold the items through the system. They were unable to account for tens of thousands of dollars worth of inventory. On top of that, Amazon charged consumers for orders despite the fact that we did not upload a tracking number verifying the shipment. Please spread the word using TWITTER and any other viral system that Amazon is conducting systematic FRAUD. Do not be so naive to think that such a large public company would stoop to such lows THEY ARE.
Patricia
01/29/2010 7:07 pmLook at the Supreme Court’s recent action. It is clear that big corporations OWN our country.
Take this far and wide via every social media site that you can. Try to get a valid business reporter to cover the story – try Mother Jones, Rolling Stone or any other more alternative media.
Keep pushing. I know that they are. I saw it firsthand as both an amazon seller and an ebay seller.
Patricia
01/29/2010 7:07 pmPS: Write to your congress too.
faith
02/09/2010 6:06 pmhey guys,
this is just a SMALL segment of the police state we are heading for, if we don’t DO SOMETHING. if we let it happen, then it WILL happen.
haven’t u guys watched Zeitgeist and Annendum?
faith
02/09/2010 6:08 pmwriting? WRITE ur congress?
omg u r so naive. words will
continue to do NOTHING. !
it’s action we need to do
SomeThing, NOT say
anymore. nOthing
left to say.
Tony Blankley
02/27/2010 3:24 pmI became so fed up with Amazon’s comically pathetic customer service that I some years ago started a twitter account solely to inform as many millions of people that I could about this preposterous company’s pathetic customer communication responses. This all began when I was literally signed up for and billed for the company’s one-click purchasing system without my knowledge and consent. It was impossible to get anyone on the telephone and complaints by email were responded to with “canned responses” that provided non-answers to questions that I had not asked. When I used emphatic and angry language in replying to the fourth canned response I finally got someone on the telephone that literally had no ability to do anything other than type in keywords I spoke into his computer and rotely recite what his computer told him to say — similar non-answers, it was like talking to a malfunctioning robot. The operator’s incompetence — or more accurately Amazon’s systemic decision to put de minimis resources into customer service — was so unbelievable I didn’t know whether to curse, cry, or laugh. I was able to resist my strong temptation not to do the former, since I try to keep in mind that the person on the end of the phone is as much a victim of Jeff Bezos’s corporate cruelty and indifference as are the customers of this pathetic company. I am happy to say that so far I have received over 100 responses from persons with similar experiences, most of whom have agreed to boycott the company and more importantly to spread the word and exponentially increase the population of those who have committed themselves to using every interpersonal interation and internet forum and opportunity to encourage that everyone with earshot and e-shot not only boycott Amazon but return any already purchased items they can return within the compnay’s return policy parameters. It is our stated goal to continue indefinitely with our so far amazingly successful efforts, all conducted within the bounds of civil law regarding interference with business relationships, to decrease the revenue of this company from customers within the Seattle area and beyond and hopefully have a dramatic negative effect on the compnay’s profits. With the ease of twitter and other electronic communications, and — ironically – the use of one-key-touch twitters, instant messages, and the like, to maintain this effort for decades until Amazon dies a whimpering death on the ash heap of history.
Randy Strong
02/28/2010 1:54 pmsame person Tony?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-blankley/is-our-government-really_b_474743.html
Dave Dirickson
03/02/2010 10:38 pm32 ays ago my amazon funds were reserved….I’ve emailed them twice asking for specific reasons for my review but have only received the standard canned response.
After reading all of these posts I feel even more frustrated as I now understand they couldnt care less about the seller’s experience.
What happened to “Sign up, Sell, Ship, Get Paid!!” If it said, “sign up, sell, have perfect feedback and a five star rating, get reviewed, have your funds held for no reason with no recourse…” I wouldnt have started selling there!!!!
What they are doing is definately not ethical or honest.
I emailed them again today asking for dispursement of funds and letting them know I’ve contacted the Washington State Attorney Generals Office.
Then I deleted my sales listings.
I will not sell there again.
Dave, (dubbled4pres) on amazon and ebay
JR
03/03/2010 11:06 amHas the Washington AG responded to anyone here that has made complaints? I would think that they would be obligated to investigate this (at a minimum).
Dave Dirickson
03/05/2010 2:35 amUpdate!!! They dispersed my funds about an hour and a half after I sent my appeal mentioning the violation of their own policies and reporting them to the attorney general. If there are any actual people working in Seller Central they are all useless. My advice, DO NOT SELL ON AMAZON. And if you do, Definately dont give them your source of inventory. They’ll just cancel your account and move in on your resources.